Naruto: The Herald of Death
by Naiwrath
Summary: Being ADHD isn't always a bad thing or is it? Naruto's impatience to try out the brand new technique that the pervert had just taught him ended up with him in the possession of a summoning contract with the Shinigami itself. Follow Naruto's story with dementors and thestrals at his beck and call.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Both series used here belong to their respective creators.**

 **Story idea: Wrath**

 **Written by: _Nai_**

 ** _Edit 1: One grammatical error and ffnet messed with our formatting. Fixed it. Enjoy people._**

 **As you can see my sister suffers from OCD.  
**

 *** _pout* I prefer the term 'perfectionist' myself._**

 ** _..._**

The gnarled wood of the trees was the white of bleached bone. Their leaves the color of ink.

They spread their roots deep into the black soil while their branches reached as if in supplication towards the obsidian sun that blazed in the white sky.

The sun climbed the dome of the sky bathing the colorless world in its nether worldly light. It reached its zenith and continued on till it was swallowed up by the horizon.

In the wake of its passing a true darkness settled upon the land. The sky, now dyed a velvet black, seemed to lighten slightly as the alabaster wood of the forest began to emit a soft luminescence.

The light breeze that picked up rustled the leaves, the sound strangely muted in the colorless realm.

Slowly the forest roused itself. The leathery rustle of delicate wings were heard as a skeletal horse with a reptilian visage and tail stepped out of the hollow of the tree it had been sheltering in to avoid the daylight.

It tasted the air with its forked tongue once, twice before it walked towards a low hanging branch to browse.

Several of its brethren drank the water of the nearby lake that reflected the moonless, starless sky upon its unnaturally flat surface that showed nary a ripple when the reptilian horses broke its surface.

A foal suddenly raised its head nickering nervously as the glow of the forest seemed to dim and the temperature dropped rapidly, a thin film of ice forming on the lake.

Out of the tree line ethereal figures appeared clad in loose flowing robes, cowls covering their faces, seemingly gliding across the ground as they made their way to the lake.

The foal settled as it noted the lack of concern in its elders, going back to grooming its wings.

One of the dementors bent and reached out with an emaciated finger tipped with a black claw to touch the ice. The thin film shattered at its touch allowing the creature to drink its fill.

Suddenly a pop rang out in the clearing, making the thestrals nicker and hiss in consternation, as every gaze was directed to the plume of white smoke that had appeared. The breeze shifted, blowing away the smoke revealing the first bit of color to grace the deadlands in the form of a boy with sun kissed hair and eye-catchingly orange clothes.

"What the hell?"

The thestrals' tongues flickered and their pupils dilated at the scent of the fresh blood dripping from Naruto's punctured thumb, their bloodlust awakened.

The dementors driven to a frenzy by the sheer amount of life force exuded by the boy gave a keening wail and threw themselves at him. The thestrals followed close behind, their beak like mouths glinting cruelly in the luminescence, their eyes hazed with bloodlust.

Naruto remained rooted to the spot inundated with wave upon wave of cold and despair. His legs were shaking as the proximity of the dementors dredged up every dark memory and feeling inside him.

He felt the loneliness and the hate engendered by the villagers' ostracism, he remembered the whispers of "demon" and "die" and watched Kakashi's lightning coated hand pierce the chest of a boy he had spent so little time with and yet who had influenced his creed so profoundly. He felt the despair welling up like a noxious sludge that was snuffing out his will to live. He wanted to… give… up.

His hand moved as ingrained muscle memory and subconscious survival instincts found his conscious mind lacking and took over his body. The kunai flew true, embedding itself to its hilt in the first onrushing dementor's chest.

Its agonized scream grated upon his entire being as he covered his ears to block out the terrible sound. Shaken out of his stupor, he took to the trees to avoid the monsters.

"As soon as I get back, that pervert is a dead man." He promised himself with gritted teeth.

...

Jiraiya of the Sannin was panicking.

The blonde handful had been pestering him for training and he had decided to begin instructing the legacy of his last apprentice a bit earlier than he had planned by passing on the toad summoning contract.

He had demonstrated the technique and coached the boy through the hand signs. When he had turned to detach the summoning scroll that he always carried on his back for Naruto to sign, he had felt Naruto's chakra spike.

He had turned around just in time to see the boy slam his hands on the ground and vanish in a puff of smoke.

Now the hyperactive brat could be anywhere depending upon which summon best matched his personality traits. He could be surrounded by hostile summon beasts or failing that arrive in some environment inimical to human life.

Jiraiya consoled himself with the thought that more likely than not the blonde menace was now surrounded by a pack of mules.

After all stubbornness and idiocy were his defining traits.

...

Naruto was leaping from branch to bone-white branch in a futile effort to lose his pursuers. The dementors were sapping his vast reserves of energy and willpower at an alarming rate and after receiving the experience of a diversionary clone that had been caught he was extremely motivated to avoid capture.

He shuddered at the memory of having every happy experience ripped from his soul. The thestrals were flying above the canopy, tracking him by the scent of his blood.

More and more of them were abandoning pursuit as his enhanced healing factor had closed the wound and the remaining blood had clotted and flaked off reducing the scent.

Over the course of the chase he had been steadily moving towards the center of the forest and he felt the trees thin out slightly as he came upon the majestic tree that dominated the clearing.

Despite the desperate circumstances he could not help but be awed by the sheer scale of the old banyan like tree. Its softly glowing branches spread out in all directions from its truly massive trunk. From each branch several prop roots hung down. Some had touched the ground and developed into thick trunks themselves, rivaling the girth of any of the Hashirama trees that made up Konoha's surrounding forest.

The tree exuded an aura of age and serenity. It seemed to pulse with renewed vigor at his approach as if somehow recognizing him.

The keening of a dementor too close behind him for comfort had him scrambling towards the ancient banyan. As soon as he entered its shadow, he felt a strange sensation not unlike water flowing down his body.

He turned back to find several of the creatures hovering at the very edge of the clearing before they left without even a whisper of sound.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the oppressive presence of the soul suckers vanished.

He trudged up to the main trunk of the tree and started looking for a way back to his own world. Halfway round the tree he stopped as he came across a gap in the wood. It looked suspiciously like a doorway so he let himself in.

The inside of the trunk was surprisingly dark considering that the walls were gleaming. The light seemed muted somehow as if someone or something had repressed it. It was the same effect as that of the dementors but taken up several notches.

As Naruto's eyes adjusted to the dimness he could make out a figure slouched in a stark stone chair at the end of the chamber. The being was humanoid and over ten feet tall at first glance.

He felt nothing from the being. No chakra, no intent and no motion. Not even the rise and fall of a chest. He was about to conclude that the being was dead when it opened its eyes languidly, freezing him in place.

His world contracted and all he could see or think of were those silver eyes set in black sclera and their dispassionate gaze. Crushed under the weight of his mortality he realized that in front of that being he paled into insignificance.

He was nothing to it, could do nothing to it and do nothing to affect its actions.

 ** _"Human. Your soul has been tempered in the pyre of Death time and time again. I shall allow you speech in my presence in respect for your mettle. Speak your wish."_**

The otherworldly voice resonated in the chamber, devoid of emotion or inflection. Crushed by the pressure of its undivided attention Naruto sank to his knees on the smooth wooden floor.

Finally gathering his scattered wits he spoke faintly, "S-summoning jutsu."

 ** _"Know you what you request, human? You seek to pay for your death with your own blood? I am the Shinigami. Summoning me will cost you your very existence in the impure world."_**

 ** _"I can see that to protect those you consider dear you would consider your demise a fair exchange. Then come."_**

The world seemed to shift around Naruto and he was suddenly kneeling within arm's reach of the Shinigami. The aura of darkness seemed to fade and he could make out the features of Death incarnate.

The God had long white hair similar to Jiraiya's and its greyish purple skin was covered with black tattoos. Its visage was demonic with a mouth full of sharp teeth and it was wearing a loose white haori cinched at the waist with a thin strip of white cloth leaving most of its tattooed chest exposed. It wore black hakama pants with a ceremonial knife attached to one side.

The Shinigami reached out with its right hand wrapped in prayer beads and tapped the immobile Naruto's forehead with a black clawed forefinger.

 ** _"I shall allow you the leeway to call upon the beings who owe me allegiance. My thestrals and dementors will answer your call and while the dementors will not harm you as long as you bear the mark of my favor, their obedience will have to be earned. The thestrals are the prize steed of the deadlands and if you treat them well they might allow you the honor of flight on the wings of Death. "_**

Seals flowed out like water from the point of contact and arranged themselves in a rough approximation of their positions on the Shinigami itself on Naruto's body before sinking into his skin and imprinting on his very soul.

The sheer agony of having his soul tampered with shut down his mind and he disappeared in a puff of smoke, banished back to where he had come from.

...

Naruto had died more than any person in human history. Every single time he created a shadow clone, he was creating another copy of himself with the same personality and will to live that he himself possessed and sending it out to die.

When the clone dispelled it sent back every experience it had obtained in its short life including the brief moment of terror at its impending oblivion before it ceased to exist. This was why shadow clones were so underutilized compared to elemental clones that did not return memories when they dispelled.

No sane person could stand the feeling of dying again, and again and yet again.

Naruto had always created upwards of ten clones and used them for the same tasks in fights. Thus even when they dispelled he could not recognize that he was receiving their memories as they were so similar to what he himself had experienced during that time.

Yet he knew what it felt like to be lethally stabbed in the heart, neck, eye, lung and so on even though the original had never experienced the same (obviously).

Naruto had died hundreds of thousands of times and never regretted it even once because each death had served a purpose. They had kept his dear ones safe or made him stronger and there was nothing the Uzumaki wouldn't do for his loved ones.

...

The Shinigami was immortal but it was forced to deal with mortality over and over as it assimilated the souls of all those who died in the impure world before allowing them entry into the pure world. This was why it had identified with Naruto and agreed to the summoning pact.

As it leant back in its seat after sending Naruto away to catch up with the backlog the few minutes of interaction had created, it wondered how Naruto would utilize his new skill.

It was pleasantly surprised to find that its usual apathy about human matters was absent.

...

 **Authors' note:**

 **This idea came upon us with all the subtlety of a train wreck. Give us reviews about what you thought about the concept and whether you would like to read more about it. If this receives a good enough response we are thinking of prioritizing this over our other ongoing work "Of Illusions and Shadows".**

 ** _So rate and review people. You know the drill._** ** _:)_**

 ** _Nai_** **Wrath out.**


	2. Chapter 2

***Disclaimer***

 **Authors' note 1:**

 **Okay people we're back with another chapter. But before that some review responses.**

 **1: A few of you guys were confused by what we meant in the previous authors' note. So this is the PM response we sent to one of you guys:**

 **"We are twins. We share the same profile. Naiwrath was my character name in Skyrim so we split it up. I am the male twin so I took the Wrath part. My sister settled for Nai. The words in italics are hers. Keep reviewing and happy reading."**

 **2.** ** _A lot of you asked about whether Harry will show up in this fic or not or will it just be the magical creatures. As of now, even we don't know. We are making the plot up as we go along. It's not pre-meditated._**

 **3.** ** _Also we got a few comments on including the Grim as a part of the contract. Honestly, we didn't think of it and then again when we chose the summon beasts we went by what would complement his fighting style the most._**

 ** _Naruto, before he goes all Super Saiyan, can't fly and is seriously nerfed against opponents who can. Like Deidara (until the idiot decides to cut his own advantage and go into a forest *plot hole alert*). So in come the thestrals. The dementors are souped up diversions that corner his opponents so he can wreck them with one of his OHK attacks and they are so cool that ice forms when they appear. You've got to dig that._**

 ** _If we were to include large black dogs, either the one headed or three headed kind, they would be trackers. And seriously guys can you imagine Naruto training seriously if he had the means to locate his one way crush (Sasuke) just a few hand signs away._**

 ** _But don't lose hope, you've not seen the last of Death's realm, just 'cause they aren't in the contract doesn't mean that they don't exist._**

 **4\. And thanks for the awesome response. We got some 100 odd things for the last chapter within the first two days.**

 **Since my sister is writing this and I'm the idea man for this one while I'm writing the majority of "Of Illusions and Shadows" and she's doing the collab there she's never going to let me live down the fact that she got better reviews for her writing. *sigh***

 ** _There. There._**

 ** _Back to the story. =_**

 **…..**

A wind picked up over the seas of Water country, blowing the moisture laden air south and east towards the lush forests of the Land of Fire.

The thermals carried the water upwards birthing clouds that gleamed a pearly white in the sunlight.

The lusty winds gusted and howled, jostling the clouds like a pack of wolves harrying a flock of sheep.

The clouds rumbled at the treatment, darkening with anger. Lightning flashed and thunder pealed as the first drop of rain darkened a spot on the gravestone that read:

 _Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze_

 _Died in Service to the Village Hidden in the Leaves,_

 _Cherished Guardian, you will be missed._

One drop became many and the rain poured down upon the hunched figure of the Third as he placed the first flower on the grave. Behind him stood the majority of the village clad in mourning garb.

He straightened up and looked up into the stormy skies, his wide hat protecting him from the worst of the rain.

He took it off, placing it on the gravestone, at least in death the boy would have his wish.

He let the relentless downpour wash his face.

The rain tasted of salt.

It seemed as if the very heavens wept at his passing.

…..

The sound of a thousand birds chirping in tandem rang out across the stadium as the last loyal Uchiha ran down the wall of the arena, picking up speed.

His lightning encased hand raked a deep furrow into the wall and then the ground as he charged headlong towards the cocoon of sand that surrounded his opponent.

The sand reacted to his hostile intentions and shot out in the form of spikes to impale him. His Sharingan spun wildly as he disintegrated the spikes with his crackling hand held out in front of him.

With a triumphant roar he plunged his hand to the elbow into the cocoon, the lightning searing through the sand like a hot needle through wax.

A bloodcurdling scream emanated from the cocoon and the sand thrashed violently to crush his trapped arm.

With a flare of lightning, he pulled free and flipped away to safety, watching the breach in the sand barrier carefully. He saw something move within the dome before a baleful eye stared out at him freezing him in place with its promise of retribution.

Then the feathers fell, and in the graveyard, a pale hand with black claws breached the soil.

….

Jiraiya awoke to the sound of explosions and screams. He looked up at the ceiling of his inn with dead eyes, his memories returning as the last of the alcohol left his system.

 _Minato, I killed your son._

Unbidden images of Naruto reappearing in the clearing pale and lifeless floated to the forefront of his mind. He had been hysterical, checking and rechecking the blond for signs of life.

He had found none. The boy was not breathing, his heart had stopped and Jiraiya could not feel his chakra at all.

He had pumped Naruto's chest again and again hoping against hope for some miracle until he had been snapped out of his panic by the sound of one Naruto's ribs snapping under his desperate ministrations.

He had carried the boy to the hospital and shouldered his way into the emergency room demanding that they fix him somehow.

He had threatened and pulled rank till the medic had caved and rushed the limp boy into another bed leaving his current patient to his assistant.

He had paced outside the room, his thoughts besieged by a maelstrom of guilt and worry.

Hiruzen, alerted by his ANBU had flickered in just in time for the medic to emerge from the room a grim look on his face.

"We did all we could. We have hooked him up onto the artificial respirator and are making his heart beat with our instruments but he is effectively dead. We found absolutely no nervous activity in his body and his chakra is nonexistent. A Hyuga confirmed this. We set his broken rib but as it stands we are just playing around with a corpse."

They filed into the room with hesitant steps and at the sight of the once vivacious child lying pale and lifeless trapped in a maze of wires something snapped in Jiraiya.

He sank to the floor with a wordless cry and cradled his face in his hands wracked with sobs. _How many more must I bury before the world is done with me?_

 _Minato, Kushina, I have failed you._

Hiruzen ran a trembling hand through the shock of golden hair. _Why? I'm too old for this. Weren't you supposed to let me rest? Weren't you supposed to sign my retirement form? Then why?_

He gazed upon the still form of the boy he had deemed his grandson for a while longer, gathering up the pieces of his shattered resolve.

Then he pulled the plug.

Turning on his heel he marched out of the room followed by a low, anguished whine from Jiraiya. Too long had the boy been denied the respect that he deserved. Hiruzen would make sure that his sacrifice would be honored, at least in death.

The Council had been aghast at the idea of giving the same funeral rites as a Kage to the 'demon' and had been very vocal about it. Hiruzen had let the babble wash over him for a respectable amount of time before silencing them by loudly stamping the form.

He was the Hokage and Konoha was a military dictatorship. They were advisors, nothing more, and in some cases he was willing to invite their ire.

Danzo had been furious at the Sage for destroying Konoha's jinchuriki and Jiraiya had almost welcomed his rage. He wanted his life to be over with so that he could be on his way to whatever hell awaited him to begin atoning for his sins.

Jiraiya had stopped drinking long enough to carve Naruto's epitaph in his beautiful seal script onto the obsidian gravestone before layering seal upon anti-vandalism seal on the hunk of rock. After all a jinchuriki was a prime target for grave robbers in search information on their seal.

He had stuck around for the funeral. He now knew how his blond teammate felt about the village. Every glimpse of the Hokage monument conjured up an image of his first apprentice and his bubbly son, laying open his emotional scar. He planned to leave once and for all to maintain his spy network and protect his village from the shadows till Death touched him.

Halfway through the preparations, Kakashi had come for him, Sharingan exposed and the Chidori flaring till the ANBU had restrained him. There on the floor of Jiraiya's apartment, held down by three straining shinobi, he had blamed the white-haired Sage for the death of his student and his sensei's son.

For the first time in years, Kakashi had tears streaming down from his own eye. Obito's tears had long since dried up.

The funeral was held the day before the Chuunin exam finals.

From the top of the Hokage tower Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, addressed his people. He informed the villagers, some of whom were quite content with the death of the 'demon', of the lineage of the boy whose death they mourned that day. He spoke of the unwavering spirit of the child who had shouldered the burden of their fear and ostracism from before he could walk. He made them aware of the dreams of the attention starved child who wanted nothing more than their acknowledgement. He spoke of Naruto Uzumaki _Namikaze_ and his Will of Fire and they listened.

He told them that the best people die early and they agreed.

….

Jiraiya got up languidly, shaking some powdered herbal remedy into a jug of water before gulping it down. He emptied his bladder and stretched out the kinks in his spine from his awkward sleeping position as he waited for the medicine to deal with his hangover.

The sounds of battle escalated outside and suddenly a massive white serpent crashed into his inn missing him by a scant few inches.

 _So the snake has slithered back into the leaf. Maybe I'll get a chance to apologize to you today Naruto. But whatever I do I'm bringing that bastard along with me._

Jiraiya shouldered his summoning scroll before leaping into the fray.

…

Naruto dug himself out of the grave with quite some difficulty and lay down on the ground facing the sky and wondered why he wasn't gasping for breath. Then he wondered why he wasn't breathing at all. And why pray wasn't his heart beating?

"The hell!?" or so he would have said if he had any air in his lungs.

No sooner had he thought of this anomaly than his lungs contracted painfully drawing in air and his heart followed suit and jump started itself.

After a prolonged bout of hacking and coughing up an impressive amount of the Earth, the boy collapsed again with watery eyes, clutching his chest.

He watched an interestingly shaped cloud float by as he contemplated his situation.

First the old pervert had sent him on a house call to the Shinigami and his monster menagerie and when that had backfired with him wrangling a summoning contract with the creepy Kami (he was awesome that way) the self-proclaimed super pervert had put him six feet under without even doing him the courtesy of killing him first.

"What did I ever do to the guy? Well if he was going to bury me he could have at least gotten my name down. What's with all this Namikaze bullcrap?"

"Choices. Choices. Do I prank him? Or do I prank him? Eh heh heh."

His descent into manic laughter was cut short by an odd sensation from the direction of the chuunin exam arena. His head snapped towards that direction. He didn't know how but he knew that someone had just died.

The felt it again and again and then again several times in quick succession.

"Who the hell started a war inside the village?"

His answer came in the form of the sudden appearance of two giant white snakes at the village walls.

"Oh. Damn the snake bastard's back. Did he go after Sasuke again?"

He made to jump onto a tree in order to take the arboreal highway to the snakes while making the sign for the shadow clone technique and ended up hugging the tree.

He staggered back nursing his broken nose. He pulled his nose sharply, resetting it, while muttering curses under his breath.

His eyes tearing up from the pain, he eyed the distance between him and the branch again and took a running start to build the required momentum. He ended up crashing face-first into the tree again. Harder.

This time the curses flew thick and fast and at a rather ample volume. Resetting his nose yet again, he took some time off to assess what he was doing wrong. And realized that he could not feel his chakra, at all.

He tried to create a shadow clone but the jutsu failed. After several attempts during which his shouts of "Shadow clone jutsu" rose through the decibel scale and he was left feeling rather silly when nothing happened, he decided to go back to the basics.

He sat down cross legged and went through the Academy prescribed mental exercises to unlock chakra coils.

There in the middle of a graveyard, fresh out of a grave, bombarded from all sides by the feeling of lives being snuffed out, Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze attempted to unlock his chakra coils for the second time in his life.

He was snapped out of his meditation by the appearance of a huge tanuki made up of sand and striped with blue markings. The weight of its malevolence settled upon the village, making Naruto flinch away.

"What the hell is that?"

The sand monster set upon the village with wild abandon and he winced when he felt each sweep of its claws extinguish several lives. Then he felt a chakra signature spike and in in three puffs of chakra smoke three giant toads were there.

Two set upon the serpents which were wreaking havoc on the village walls while the largest toad with a gigantic pipe clutched in its mouth went up against the tanuki.

Naruto watched fascinated as the battle raged back and forth between the monsters.

He was snapped back to reality by a weird sensation coming from the direction of the stadium. It was the reverse of the feelings he had been having so far. It was as if someone was being resurrected.

He redoubled his efforts at unlocking his chakra coils as he felt his rage at the wanton destruction of his village rise.

He screamed with frustration as he could find no trace of chakra within his body.

He was about to try again when he saw the tanuki topple backwards and fall. The world seemed to slow as his eyes followed the arc of the monster's body as it tumbled backwards, arms flailing and landed on the Academy, flattening it.

The feeling of several tiny lives being snuffed out hit him. He clenched his fists till his newly acquired black claws drew blood.

"No." he whispered in disbelief.

He ran through the hand seals for the summoning technique and slammed his hands down on the ground.

" **No.** "

And again.

" **NO.** " he screamed.

This time a corona of blue chakra exploded out of him, tinged with red. Tattoos spiraled out of the spot on his forehead where the reaper had touched him and when he opened his eyes they were a glowing silver set in midnight black.

When he slammed his bloodied hands on the ground, the seal that spread out was nearly large enough to encompass the entire graveyard.

The temperature dropped rapidly and the ground, wet from the rain, crackled as it froze. The noon sun seemed to lose its light as dementor after dementor emerged from the glowing circle. Their shrill protests at being summoned into the burning light of day merged together into an unholy cacophony that set nerves on edge.

They regarded their blond summoner with hollow sockets and seemed to flinch back at the sight of his glowing eyes and tattoos. With a final screech of displeasure, they dispersed to unleash hell upon Konoha.

The strain of being dead for nearly a week and then exhausting all of his chakra as soon as he awoke caught up to Naruto and he collapsed onto the ground, walking the knife's edge of unconsciousness.

…

 **Authors' note 2:**

 **I always disliked the fact that Naruto was deprived of the knowledge of his heritage. So what better way to get him up to speed than having him die, have the Hokage declare it posthumously and then *Bam* he's back.**

 ** _I can think of lots of better ways. This one just fits with this story._**

 **Ya well its original at the very least.**

 ** _We know that this isn't the best we can do in terms of writing but it was a rush job in between exams so cut us some slack. Pretty please._**

 **We apologize for the cliffhanger but you won't regret waiting for the ass-kicking the soul-suckers are going to dish out next chapter as we'll be able to put in more time and effort into it.**

 ** _And please review. It gets our creative juices flowing._**

 ** _Nai_** **Wrath out.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer.**

 **Authors' note:**

 ** _Sorry for the delay but this chapter fought me. It wanted to go in so many directions and only a few led to coherent stories. Finally my brother pulled through for me and now we have the complete plot mapped out._**

 **Enjoy the story folks.**

 **...**

The toad boss swung his massive sword, shearing into the monstrous construct of sand the abomination called its arm, neatly slicing it off.

Under normal circumstances this would have been enough for him to engage in a round of taunts aimed at enraging his opponent, rendering them inefficient. But after doing it fourteen times only to have the monster regenerate at each instance, mid-battle banter was the farthest thing from his mind.

On the top of his head, Jiraiya stood motionless with his palms together, anchored with chakra. A tailed beast wasn't something that he could afford pull his punches on, especially if he wanted to contain the collateral damage.

So Sage Mode it was. But since collecting sage chakra required that his relative velocity with whatever he was standing on be zero, he needed to call upon the sage elders of Mt. Myouboku if he wanted to fight while using it.

The toad sages were so entrenched in senjutsu that they had become a part of nature itself and summoning them took sage chakra as well. Thus Jiraiya was gathering sage chakra. And the sensory boost due to the natural energy suffusing his pathways allowed him to detect the massive deluge of a familiar chakra.

His head snapped around towards the source, causing his connection to the World to snap.

On the opposite side of the village where the burial grounds were located the day seemed dimmer. The color leached out of the area. Hoar frost coated the trees and crept outwards rapidly. Despair spread out in waves, almost corporeal in its intensity.

Jiraiya felt a tingle of dread even while separated by the length of the village.

Then came the screams.

Both human and inhuman.

The dementors' shrieks were akin to the noise of blunted chalk on blackboards, jarring in their intensity, while the humans just screamed. Screamed as their very beings rebelled against the sheer horror of the presence of over a hundred of the abominations.

Shinobi hardened by decades of war, treachery and slaughter were reduced to whimpering messes by the dementors' passing. Every traumatic memory, every painful experience was dredged up from the darkest recesses of their minds just as each moment of happiness they had ever experienced was torn out of their souls.

Village affiliations mattered little to the monsters that blighted the Leaf. Sand, sound or leaf, the dementors considered them prey and prey had no borders to shelter behind.

Profession, age and gender mattered even less.

Here a woman screamed till she lost her voice and then screamed some more. There a Leaf shinobi with grotesque scars all over his head sank down on his knees shivering with his hands gripping his ears in a futile attempt to block out the screams of his countless victims. Further ahead a child not yet a denizen of the world for a year hyperventilated its way to an early demise as its father took a jagged shard of glass from a broken window to his own throat to escape the oppressive presence of the dementors. And down the lane an old ramen chef's aging heart gave out before his courage as he failed to prevent or indeed slow the descent of a dementor's lips onto his daughter's leaving a soulless husk behind.

The terrors swept forward, draining emotion and vitality, making the leaf wilt in their wake and the Will of Fire gutter and dim with their passing.

It took the first of the dementors five minutes to arrive at the location of the strongest source of chakra in Konoha: the Ichibi. Five minutes of utter terror and chaos that ended the war as Sand, Sound and Leaf banded together under the banner of Humanity to wage war against its eternal foe: Death.

Fire, water, earth, lightning and wind rained elemental fury down upon the monsters. Scorching, drowning, crushing, electrocuting and slicing them apart.

It was futile.

Fire petered out, water froze, earth froze and then shattered, electricity danced across their forms harmlessly before dissipating and severed limbs and torsos disappeared in gouts of heatless purple flame before reappearing in their proper places.

Death apparently knew no demise.

….

They came in ones and twos and then in dozens, attracted by the miasma of madness and hate that permeated the air around the tailed-beast.

Gamabunta recoiled from the creatures and Jiraiya struggled to keep his composure as wave after wave of cold and despair crashed upon him.

They swarmed the Ichibi, circling the tanuki like vultures and swooping in to take rattling breaths that seemed to draw in more than just air. At their approach the sand froze and with each essence draining breath the sand lost its coherence a little more, flaking off in clumps.

The beast roared, panic tinging its voice and flailed around with its gigantic arms to rid itself its tormentors.

A massive sandy paw closed upon an overeager dementor and with a terrible roar acting counterpoint to the jarring scream the tanuki used a Sand Burial.

For a tense moment, the battle seemed to stand still. And in that silence a soft crackling sound could be heard. A layer of ice was forming on the fist that held the dementor. The ice spread like flames on paper till the entire forearm was frozen solid.

Then the arm shattered and suspended amidst the shards of ice that glittered like diamond dust was the mangled body of the fell creature, dripping black blood.

Then time seemed to flow backwards as the blood flew upwards, back into the creature and its skin knit itself back together. The twisted limbs untwisted and broken bones became whole again. Finally its shredded cloak came together around it, shrouding its hideous features again.

Then with a chorus of outrage the dementors attacked again.

The Ichibi roared and screamed and thumped its stomach time and again sending burst after burst of pressurized air at the monsters but against its indestructible foes it fought a losing battle.

The beast shrunk and shrunk till with a desperate howl, it disintegrated into sand and dove back into the safety of its seal.

Gaara awoke with a gasp of pain as the tanuki's chakra slammed into him.

The dementors screamed with their triumph and dove towards the cowering boy when all of a sudden, they stopped.

Each hollow eye in Konoha turned towards the Hokage tower and without so much as a sound, every dementor abandoned its private battle and took off at a high speed towards it.

…..

Hinata Hyuga inspected the pristine white ceiling of the hospital room with dull lavender eyes.

The sounds of battles were barely registered over the vicious internal tumult that ravaged her psyche.

Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze had been an ideal for her. A paragon of how to behave when the entire world was dismissive of your worth. In fact the new revelations showed her how he had it even worse than her.

He was a fallen prince unaware of his heritage till his dying breath. Hated and shunned by the very villagers he protected day after day and yet. Yet he stood up after every fall and smiled.

Oh that smile. That act which went beyond a simple baring of his teeth. It was a ray of sunshine in the dark. And it was something she had fallen in love with.

Yes she admitted it freely now when it was of no use, when he was beyond her reach forever. She had fallen in love with the boy who refused to bend or break.

But, where was he now? Cold and lifeless six feet under the ground. For all his strength of character, for all his idealism and for all his grandiose dreams he had died. Not with honor, not in a blaze of glory but in a training accident.

Yes, she realized it now that reality was hard and those who challenged it were doomed to failure. She exhaled softly, giving up her hopes with the air that left her lungs.

She would live, she owed that much to his memory to not end her own life, and wallow in mediocrity. Demeaned by her clan, sidelined in favor of her sister, hated by her cousin and a disappointment to her father.

As she tracked her future she realized that she would survive for the rest of her life, not live it.

The door opened with a bang, jarring her out of her musings.

A tall man with the symbol of the Sound village on his forehead protector entered with kunai drawn. His eyes fell upon her injuries and then upon her eyes and tracked upwards to her unmarked forehead.

His smile said it all.

She watched him with a blank gaze. So this was how she would meet her end. Oh well, maybe she would get to meet him again. That would be nice.

As the grinning shinobi tensed to lunge at her, both their eyes were drawn to the pale skeletal fingers with black claws that wrapped around the door frame. The frost that spread out from it and the intense sense of dread that emanated from the figure that entered the room brought the Sound nin to his knees.

Unfeeling, hollow sockets met empty lavender eyes. Time stood still for a single moment before the hooded figure turned away from her, deeming her a poor meal.

Its fingers hooked under the trembling man's chin before it bent down and its dead lips met his.

Suddenly its head jerked back as its sightless eyes fixed upon the far distance.

Then it was gone.

When they found her later, she looked up at them with a gentle smile. She was seated cross-legged on the floor with a drooling, soulless Sound nin's head on her lap and a gentle hand caressing his locks.

Her eyes were dead.

…

Hiruzen had managed to seal both the first and second Hokage and was engaged in a battle of wills with his former student.

The Shinigami hovered behind him with his arm through his chest and clawed fingers digging into Orochimaru's soul.

The traitorous snake was fighting back with the Sword of Kusanagi which he was digging into his erstwhile mentor with his mouth as Sarutobi's summon, Enma, tried his best to keep the sword away from the aged Hokage's vitals.

Then came the dementors.

The nether worldly monsters congregated around the fiery barrier that separated them from their master. Then one of them touched the barrier that had immolated many a desperate ANBU. The black clawed finger sizzled but did not burn.

The dementor hissed in pain and then rammed its entire body against the offending barrier, followed by its brethren.

Steam rose where the undead touched the angry red flames of the barrier. The Sound Four trembled under the strain but held it up. A few dementors vanished in a puff of smoke as they ran out of chakra. The others pressed on even more maniacally.

The barrier flickered once, twice and then fell. The elite four of the Sound collapsed exhausted as the fell creatures swarmed over them towards the two shinobi engaged in their death match.

Sarutobi Hiruzen had accepted his death and was willing to sacrifice his life for the benefit of the Leaf. Orochimaru on the other hand clung onto life with a fiery tenacity. Survival against all odds was so deeply entrenched in his being that it had become a core tenet of his personality.

Thus in a battle of wills that pitted his desire to live against Sarutobi's loyalty to the Hidden Leaf, he was sure to triumph. Yet, this burning will was his downfall when the dementors came.

Both were exemplary shinobi, masters of their art and in the course of their long illustrious careers had faced a genjutsu specialist or two. They put up shield after mental shield and hid themselves away behind fake personalities. Orochimaru even retreated partially to his mindscape where he generally stored Kusanagi. Yet the wave after wave of soul-crushing despair that assaulted them forced them to their knees.

Enma disappeared in a puff of smoke as the dementors drained him of chakra and Kusanagi clattered to the ground from Orochimaru's slack jaws. Most of the dementors were hovering over the snake Sannin as they relished his will power as they drained him of his soul while Hiruzen had a much easier time of it.

The Shinigami sensed the weakness of its victim and yanked hard, pulling Orochimaru's soul into Hiruzen and sealing it. It removed its ceremonial knife and slashed through the connection between Hiruzen and itself, reaping his soul as its payment.

Just as it was about to phase out of existence it was halted by an anguished wail. It turned and its eyes met Naruto's and widened in surprise.

The air behind it rippled and the Shinigami departed the plane of the living. And with seventy eight puffs of smoke the remaining dementors followed suit.

Naruto's eyes reverted to their customary cerulean and the seals on his body faded as he sank to his knees beside the corpse of his pseudo-grandfather. And then in a puff of smoke he too was gone.

….

It was a strange end to a stranger war. The end did not come with bloodshed or violence. It did not end in a surrender or even a compromise. It ended with Sand and Sound and Leaf shinobi standing back to back, panicked eyes flickering left, right, up and down in search of the terrible, terrible foes that had laid bare their darkest fears and besieged their sanity in just a few minutes.

When the news came, in the voice of a Konoha jounin enhanced by a Sand nin's wind technique, that the Kazekage had been murdered and impersonated by Orochimaru, who was dead at the Hokage's hand, and that Sand was withdrawing from the war, there was a collective sigh of relief.

The proclamation that the monsters were all gone garnered boisterous cheers.

Sound, demoralized by their leader's death capitulated quickly after that.

Kabuto escaped with Orochimaru's body, Kusanagi and the Sound four with Kimimaro's help.

As Konoha rallied from its brush with annihilation and took stock of its losses, a disquieting rumor began to spread. Its source was a Hyuga ANBU that had been present during the final moments of Hiruzen's battle with Orochimaru. His Byakugan had revealed the connection between summoner and summoned that extended from Naruto to the demons that had terrorized Konoha and he had watched him getting reverse summoned by the Shinigami. His eyes had also revealed the lack of a chakra network in the boy's body and its reappearance when the last of the monsters had vanished.

Now, a lot of conclusions could have been drawn from this. The sight of Orochimaru resurrecting the previous Hokage and Naruto's escape from his grave could have been linked as Orochimaru resurrecting the Kyuubi jinchuriki to wreak havoc on Konoha. Or a quick body count would put most minds at ease that if not for the dementors, the loss of life and property would have been even more severe.

The newly formed positive perspective of Naruto Namikaze was pitted against thirteen years of mistrust directed towards Naruto Uzumaki and found itself on the losing end. The theory that found most credence was that the 'demon child' had formed a pact with the Shinigami to escape death and had offered up the Third Hokage's life in exchange.

By the time the last rays of the sun had painted the Hokage monument a bloody crimson an opinion had formed in the minds of most of Konoha.

Naruto Uzumaki had murdered the Third Hokage.

….

 **Heh heh heh!**

 ** _Nai_** **Wrath out!**


End file.
